You know you’re in for something halfway cool when Ray Park is involved. The guy’s played everything from Darth Maul to Snake Eyes and often manages to outshine his co-stars without having a speaking role. Toss in a Power Ranger and Jason Voorhees, and you’ve got something special.

The demonic horde Legion (played Derek Mears of “Friday the 13th” in a medieval flashback) has made their collective way to L.A. – all four thousand of them. The only thing standing between them and a gateway to Hell is a hitman without a soul (Ray Park), a ninja (former Power Ranger Johnny Yong Bosch) and the last Knight Templar (Esteban Cueto). The rest of the cast ranges from serviceable to forgettable. The special effects look like they were done with Photoshop. The script reads like fanfiction floating somewhere between Supernatural and Final Fantasy. It seems what little budget this movie had went to assembling a cast of stuntmen.

Yet despite this unpretentious set-up (or perhaps because of it), the film triumphs as a B-movie delight. Recognizable as Ichigo from “Bleach”, Bosch makes a dependable co-star, even if his eyeliner makes him look like a sword-wielding Adam Lambert. The best action and the best dialogue often involves Park and Bosch, and the general enthusiasm of both actors helps elevate the film well past the sum of its parts. The film ultimately ends on more a rallying point for a sequel rather than any resolution, but it’s a sequel I’d rather see than most Hollywood franchises.

Tomb of Ligeia & Evening Of Edgar Allan Poe Combo PackAh, good old Edgar Allan Poe has his stories acted out by the one and only Vincent Price.

The main highlight of this collection for me is “Tomb of Ligeia” which opened me up to a great world of 60’s black and white horror movies as well as the greatest pair of sunglasses I have ever known. Years later, I have still been unable to find a replica pair (if found, please let me know! Pretty please?).

Vincent Price plays a grief-stricken widower about to remarry. However, the spirit of his first wife starts to haunt his abbey and torment his fiancee. The story escalates into a mystery as it appears the departed wife will not rest and perhaps – just perhaps – Mr. Price had something to do with her restlessness.

Richly shot with plenty of atmosphere and scares (including a cat that must be well trained or just born mean) I found this movie to be an engrossing classic.

HackersA cult classic ripped straight that 90s craze where we thought computers and the internet were magical things. With flashy clothes, virtual reality and cyberpunk coolness, the film centers around a child prodigy computer genius who was busted for cyber-crimes. Picking up on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, he moves into the big city and starts drifting towards his hacker roots once more.

Soon he starts showboating against other hackers, who seem to be rebel skateboarders with names like Cereal Killer, Zero Fool, Phantom Freak and Lord Nikon. Challenges are thrown down; impossible things are done with computers and 512MB of RAM makes people drool.

As must happen, one of the youngest hackers gets the whole gang into trouble by tampering with the wrong system. Enter Fisher Stevens, also known as ‘The Plague.’ He oozes charm, reeks of evil and meets our intrepid heroes at one point by hanging onto the back of limo – while riding a skateboard!

Of course, this all leads to an impossible ending where virtual reality constructs represent the data of a computer. But who cares? It’s fun, funny and charming.

This movie, lacking true special features of any kind on a bare bones DVD can be found on Amazon for $10.99. Hackers – $10.99Update: When we first posted this blog, the price was $6.99, but the day it was posted, Amazon had bumped the price up to $10.99 (providing more evidence ‘the Plague’ runs Amazon). We simply cannot recommend the product at this price, especially for a bare-bones DVD with little special features. We recommend you wait for something a little closer to the original $6.99 price tag.

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